Punish companiesof dirty politicos

For sure they’ll cry “political harassment.” Still crony companies of the departing Aquino regime must be punished. In food, mining, and transport they make life miserable for consumers, farmers, Lumad, and train commuters. They owe blood debts, have plundered tens of billions of pesos, and corrupted state regulators. The electorate has voted to stop them. It’s up to the incoming Duterte admin to exact justice.

Foremost of the cronies is SR Metals Inc. For 10 years now people of Agusan del Norte, in Mindanao’s Pacific coast, have been decrying its destructive nickel mining. The Aquino regime ignores them, as SR Metals financed its presidential bids in 2010 and 2016. Behind the firm are Eric Gutierrez and Liberal Party spokesman Rep. Edgar Erice. President-elect Rody Duterte has the dossier from the Philippine National Police.

SR Metals started in April 2006 as “small-scale miner” to extract at most 50,000 tons of ore a year. By August, however, it already exceeded the limit, prompting closure orders from local and national offices. Defiant, SR Metals reinterpreted its license to mean 50,000 tons of processed nickel. At 1.5 percent metal per ton of ore, that would allow it to level a mountain range. Such feat, by a wee miner purportedly with only picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows. Lumad and lowlanders demonstrated against the ruin of forests and rivers. Lawsuits ensued, including plunder raps against SR Metals’ principals. Allegedly it extracted 40 times the quota, raking in P2.9 billion. Still the environmental pillage went on.

In March 2008 SR Metals got “large-scale miner” status from new Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, LP-mate Lito Atienza. More than covering up past misdeeds, the new license expanded the mining scope from 20 to 572 hectares. Displaced tribals and farmers stepped up protests, begging new President Noynoy Aquino in mid-2010 to intervene. They also asked Malacañang to make SR Metals recompense them, as mining laws state. But they continually were dispersed with bullets and water cannons, and their leaders killed or jailed. Erice charged with frivolous suits the mayor who supported them. Accompanying P-Noy in 2012 to state visits in the US and UK, Gutierrez was billed as one of the “top 26 Filipino Businessmen.” Presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang then joined Gutierrez’s transport chartering firm Air Juan. (Expect vicious trolls to swarm in reaction to this column.)

In June 2015 the Supreme Court affirmed the 2006 closure of SR Metals and the paltry P7-million fine for over-extracting P3 billion of ore. In turn, the mountains all the way north to Surigao were militarized, triggering an exodus of Lumad. To date 68 persons have been killed in protests in Agusan-Surigao, where other LP financiers hold adjacent nickel mines. Yet the plunder raps against SR Metals pends at the Ombudsman. In January 2016 P-Noy even awarded SR Metals for supposed exemplary pro-environment and pro-people deeds.

Meanwhile, the firm is contesting at the DENR the applicability of the SC ruling. It contends that it already is “large-scale,” so no longer violates the 50,000-ton limit for “small-scale.” What should be at bar is why a bogus, abusive “small miner” was elevated to bigger license at all. But that perhaps is for DU30’s new DENR secretary to resolve.

For Election 2016 Air Juan lent its entire fleet to the LP presidential run of Mar Roxas. To reports of that Roxas retorted: “Eric Gutierrez is my friend, what is wrong with that?”

Aside from the PNP dossier, two points can be pointed up. One, Air Juan got tax exemptions and hasty licenses for its jet imports and operations that competitors never enjoyed (see Gotcha, 12, 15, 17, and 24 Feb. 2016). That’s from aviation agencies under Transport Sec. and LP president Joseph Abaya. Too, the Election Code prohibits any government franchisee, like a miner, from contributing to any candidate, who is also barred from accepting. Belatedly Roxas claimed to have rented Gutierrez’s aircraft, but has shown no contract.

It would be interesting to see how they declare such arrangement in the candidate’s Statement of Contributions and Expenses. By law, that SOCE must be filed by today. The Comelec and state auditors would do well to check the valuation of the aircraft, seven of which are brand new. If they don’t, then maybe the numbers men of DU30, who promises new politics, should do it.

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